Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Some new CB features

I've been thinking about this little blog of mine lately, wondering what to do with it. It has gotten away from the original direction, which was a boring list of what I'd been up to, day after day, as I discovered the city I'd recently moved to. I'm glad it has gotten away from that, but now I'm searching for a central point, a pat response to the second-most frequently asked question I get about this blog, which is "So why do you do it?" (The first most often asked question concerns the ridiculous name of this here blog and how drunk/lame/stupid I am for choosing it.)

I do know I really dig Cleveland, and I like using my blog to draw attention to the great things I see around town. And it provides me an outlet to chronicle the sublime ridiculousness of my life when necessary. And it offers me a semi-formal forum to do some culture writing. But I like structure in my life, and since I don't have a Cleveland Bachelor boss, I guess I'm going to have to create it myself.

For now, I have four ideas of how to make this thing more real.

1) Return to my "What to do next week" posts, which note all the cool shit, in my opinion, that is going down in the coming week. I plan to post one of these every Sunday.

2) A new Album of the week post. This likely won't be a feature concerning albums coming out that particular week, but rather reasonably recent releases that I've come to dig or that have gotten the typical fawning internet-hipster praise that I don't quite get. I'll plan on posting these every Wednesday, possibly beginning today. I'll be in DC next week, so this might not happen consistently at first, but it'll eventually get that way.

3) A NEO Proper Noun of the Week post. What, you ask? Well, I love doing casual, idiosyncratic interviews with folks, and there are TONS of interesting people around town that deserve more attention than they receive. Of the many things I dig about Cleveland, one thing I detest is the groupthink that characterizes the cultural media establishment here. Certain individuals and places are deemed to be great in advance, often long before they ever open their doors, while many more folks toil in obscurity. Part of this is because we don't have much media competition in this town, part of it is because the few ground-level culture elites we have our territorial homers, part of it is because some are more concerned with being liked and getting a free drink than being smart, part of it is because of the obnoxiously stupid east-west divide that lifetime residents fall into, and part of it is because the few establishment culture writers we have are (a) terrible at their jobs, (b) lazy, (c) underfunded, or (d) all of the above. I'd like to do my small part to help change some of that ethic. I also prefer to conduct my conversations in person, over a beer or cup of coffee, and want to get a handful saved in reserve before I start posting them, so this might not happen right away, but keep your eyes peeled for an eventual each-Thursday offering.

4) Some more active involvement in the community, perhaps through event sponsorships. I have a couple ideas I'm kicking around to start things off this month and next, but like the other stuff, this is all in progress. One thing I'd like to do is organize some day-trips to cool places, like the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh or zip-lining in Columbus or alco-pop tastings at art galleries (seriously).

Feel free to weigh in on any of the above, or suggest something entirely different. There are lots of things being done in other cities that are cool, too, so if you know of something from somewhere else and think a Cleveland version would be useful, I'm always down for a little copy-cat action. Post a comment or send me a note.

2 comments:

I can't believe that I'm going to do this, but I'm going to compliment you, and your blog.

I don't think you need to change a thing about it - It is the perfect mix of everything that anyone might want to know about you, and anything that folks might want to know about what is going down in C-Town.

You do an admirable job of covering that second part, and I wish that I could adhere to a similar schedule regarding current events that folks need to be aware of.

Definitely a good idea to get a couple of regular features in place, and the stuff you're planning sounds cool!

About Me

Moving to Cleveland a couple years ago for work, I soon learned how rich the cultural community around town was. Whether rock shows or poetry readings, edgy gallery openings or string quartets, Clevo has it all. I do my best to bring you some coverage and advocacy about what I think you should check out, support, and exploit.